ON February 12, Meham town in Rohtak district, Haryana, saw a citizens’ convention that was unusual in more than one sense. First, it was being held from the ramparts of the Meham Chaubisi Chabootara, a platform reserved for members of the Meham panchayat (a conglomeration of 24 villages, better known as the Meham Chaubisi). Second, the meeting was not dominated by any one caste. Third, it was a congregation of...
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Love & honour
A three-hour drive from Delhi a medieval drama is playing out. A khap — or caste — panchayat in Haryana’s Bhiwani district has asked a man and his family to leave the village because he has married a woman of the same “gotra”. The family sought police protection after the panchayat threatened a social boycott and pronounced a ban on the sale of their land, saying that it would be...
More »Nothing Common about this Wealth by Dunu Roy
Much of the daylight robbery in the name of Commonwealth Games has been justified in the name of "National Prestige" and "World class aspirations. Whether all these surreptitious measures will eventually deliver the games is an open question? The Commonwealth is a 'friendly' association of those 72 colonies which were once part of the British Empire and rose to free nationhood - some through protracted struggle and others through negotiation. In...
More »Draft food security bill may irk Sonia, states, SC by Nitin Sethi
The government has readied the draft of its promised Food Security Act but the bare provisions appear to fall short of the pledge on many counts. It could not only trigger a face-off with the states but also cause heartburn to the Supreme Court and displease Congress chief Sonia Gandhi who had prepared a draft and sent it to the Prime Minister's Office last June. The Bill is a result...
More »Apex court refuses to answer RTI queries
The Supreme Court has refused to answer several queries filed under the right to information law on whether judges of the top court conversant with the affairs of Karnataka High Court had been consulted by the Chief Justice of India before a decision was taken to elevate Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran to the apex court. The collegium, headed by the Chief Justice of India, had recommended Dinakaran’s name to the...
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